MUSIC PREVIEW

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is bigger

Nothing says the holidays like metal. Holiday metal. And flamethrowers. And ÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â… helicopters. What's it all about?

November 18, 2010

If you value holiday songs at a holiday concert, TSO offers snippets of old favorites and of course, it's own favorite, the unintentionally hilariously titled " Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)," which many fans simply call "The Song," and which sounds like every ramped-up, over-the-top "South Park" metal parody condensed to four minutes, and is almost certainly playing on a 24-7 holiday radio station at this minute. That said, the spectacle is the thing here, and TSO's shows are so popular, and draw such a wide demographic. Fourteen years after being founded, there are now two Trans-Siberian Orchestras which tour simultaneously, one on the west side of the country, one on the east, each playing a matinee and evening performance in almost every city. At one show I attended, an elderly man noticed me taking notes and said "These guys are fantastic. Make sure you give them a good write-up!" His face glowed as he said this. It glowed partly because he said it against a backdrop of flame throwers and female dancers in military garb gyrating on catwalks.

But there was no Frosty, no Rudolph, no Santa, and only vague allusions to Jesus. Frankly, I don't know where you'd fit them on a TSO stage anyway.

January 2010

Flipping through dozens of end-of-the-decade stories, I stop at a name on the list of the most successful North American touring acts: "Trans-Siberian Orchestra," a name I'm vaguely familiar with. I realize that I have no idea what TSO is. The list, from the trade magazine Pollstar, says TSO was the 20th most successful act of the decade, just ahead of Aerosmith. It began touring in 1999. By 2009, TSO had sold seven million tickets and grossed $194.9 million — and that's without selling the sort of "Gold Circle" packages many performers now offer, which jack up tour revenue. I ask several people if they have ever seen Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Most wince and say no. More say they have no idea what TSO is. So I call a friend who's been to several TSO shows. He owns a denim TSO jacket; on its back is a tiger clawing a guitar. He told me Paul O'Neill (TSO founder) sent it to him. One day, it just showed up in the mail.

February

My neighbors take down their holiday decorations. I forget about TSO for several weeks.

March

Exciting news!

At the end of the month, TSO begins its first spring tour, centered around its first non-holiday CD, "Beethoven's Last Night," and (according to the press release) "combining 50% of what happened with 50% of what might have happened." It'll tide me over until Christmas. I call O'Neill to discuss. His accent is almost a parody of a New Yorker. We talk for two hours, though I suspect he could have gone much longer. He explains that he grew up in Queens, in a large Irish family, one of ten children and that he played guitar in touring companies of " Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Hair," then worked in band management, handling acts such as Aerosmith and the Scorpions, then he was a big deal tour promoter in Japan.

But he doesn't tour with TSO that often. In fact, for a major concert act, TSO is like a heavy metal hair band without a lead performer; instead, it operates with a rotating group of session musicians. An intentional decision, O'Neill explained, so as to slip better into everyday life "and just observe humanity."

April

I meet a few fans outside the Chicago Theatre before a show. They are air conditioner salesmen and secretaries and grandparents and "wild animal technicians." Stacey Porter, 23, a pet groomer in a polka-dotted dress, flew in from Portland, Ore., to visit her TSO friends. She describes her first contact with TSO this way: "I didn't know what to expect because it was nothing like anything I had heard. I just went 'Whoa.'" Though it's night, an many people seem to be wearing sunglasses. One guy from Wisconsin (in sunglasses) only says his name is "Wolf." He stares ahead and frowns. When I ask about TSO, he softens, says before TSO, the only bands he paid attention to were Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple. He chuckles himself at the names.

A woman named Karen tells me that she loves how TSO always gives a salute to "all of the past, present and future members of the military," and later, during the show, the TSO member who offers this salute uses those very words. Gary Mertz, who works for the McHenry public works department, mentions that "back when the economy was good and I got overtime I could go to five TSO shows a year." Today, he's down to three. Still, he says, both of his sons have guitars from TSO, tossed from the stage. He himself once caught a silver dollar "and the guy next to me caught Paul O'Neill's sunglasses."